The Inside the Park Marathon Series bringsphilanthropic running to baseball

It takes a special kind of physical strength and mental fortitude to run a marathon. Training for a race takes months, and as any marathoner can attest to, 26.2 miles is not easy on the body.

And it doesn't get easier when you complete that marathon by running 100+ laps in a circle. It's hard. It's mentally draining. One side of your body gets beat up and every few minutes you see the same faces in the crowd, the same stands, the same runners.

But then you remember: you're actually running on the same field that has hosted hundreds of baseball greats. Your running shoes are on the same ground their baseball spikes once trotted on. The average baseball fan will never get a chance to step foot on that field, but you get to spend hours on it. And to top it off, the money you fundraised directly impacts thousands of lives in the community.

So yeah, running a marathon around a ballpark's infield is hard. But you aren't doing it by or for yourself.